“I’m Upset”

“I’m Upset,” which will apparently appear on the upcoming Scorpion, is Drake at his most bitter and listless—“Every month I’m supposed to pay her bills and get her what she want/I still got like seven years of doing what I want/My dad still got child support from 1991” goes one particularly charming stretch. But above all it is boring. Drake doesn’t switch up his flow, the minimal beat drones on, and we are asked to take a rap song with the chanted chorus “I’m upset” with a straight face. “I’m upset” is not self-expression; it is what you teach a toddler to howl instead of pulling someone’s hair. It is less a big mood than a glass case of emotion.

There are subliminals of sorts aimed at Pusha, with whom Drake beefed (again) over the weekend. Aside from a morsel of juicy irony in the song’s eerie similarity to one of Quentin Miller’s half-finished reference tracks that leaked in 2015, the stakes feel so low that they are barely worth recounting. Really, does any rapper’s reputation need less protection than Drake’s? Ever since VIEWS debuted to hardcore-fan indifference and world-conquering streaming numbers, he has become a global property. His reputation is no longer his currency. His currency is…currency. Ubiquity, inescapability. Hearing him prod other rappers is like watching Mark Zuckerberg’s cat-ate-the-canary grin being grilled by Congress. I am bigger than all of you combined, you could hear him thinking. Neither were ever in any danger.